Clinical Approach:

A thorough psychiatric evaluation and care is usually multidimensional and based on a biological (medical), psychological, and social model.. As a student of Professors Paul McHugh and Phillip Slavney at Johns Hopkins University, I have learned to consider disease, temperament, behavior, and life story to be important factors in psychiatric evaluation and treatment.

The consistency or reliability of various theories on mental health are valuable; yet, I doubt the full validity of any single theory in practice and prefer a biopsychosocial or eclectic approach.

While I appreciate an old tradition of "good words, thoughts, and deeds", I utilize contemporary methods to understand and treat my patients’ difficulties with their feeling, thinking, and behavior. Humor is part of such a treatment!

Reasons for referral to us:

• Differentiating major mental illnesses form disorders related to behavior, life experience, and temperament
• Anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, Schizophrenia, Dementia, and other major mental illnesses
• Behavior disorders such as addiction to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling and other addictive behaviors
• Life challenges such as adjustment disorder, PTSD, and other demoralizing life experiences
• Personality traits such as avoidance, suspiciousness, impulsivity, intellectual and other personality vulnerabilities
• Treatment with psychopharmacology, supportive, cognitive-behavioral, and insight oriented individual and family therapy

Private Practice, Orange County, CA, since 2003

Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry: University of Southern California, 2003-2005

Psychiatry residency: Johns Hopkins University

Internship: University of California, San Diego

Medical School: University of Zurich, Switzerland

Useful links about mental health:

National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Health